Lily pushed her index finger through the hole in her old jumper, her tie poking out from under the tatty material. She refused to throw it away; the jumper. It was old, decaying, fraying, and yet, it was her favorite possession. There was something about it that she was drawn to.

I found much joy in our earlier activity, but none whatsoever in the aftermath. Lily adored the forest; she knew it like the back of her own hand. Dad said that she was close to Auntie Luna for a reason.

To me that reason is still yet to be known.

Luna is a whack job; Lily is not.

While the red head that I called a sister spent the walk back from the forest boring me to tears with utterly ridiculous facts about her chosen animal of the moment, I wished that it would become instinct. Then she would have nothing to speak about.

I contemplated for a moment if Bambi would appreciate this, but then I realised that she was never to know.

I had stood in the forest, surrounded by trees, stood in mud and left smelling of animal shit – but it was worth it. All to see his bloody face afterwards, that is, if he ever finds his way out.

Why were the two of us in the forest you ask?

Lily is a little strange for her age; she thrives on revenge and trouble instinctively more than either Scorpius or I do. She was more than happy to oblige to my request.

She threw her red hair over her shoulder as we stood inside the castle walls hours later.

“Do you think that the Professors will find out that it was us?” she questioned.

I shrugged. “Probably not, do you care?”

“Not in the slightest,” she retorted. “I simply wondered if I would be getting credited for this plan.”

“You can have your name in the daily Prophet.” I lied “Right next to your arrest and life sentence in Azkaban.”

I waited for her eyes to light up with joy, but they never did. I forgot that Lily wasn’t one for joking around.

I had approached her the night before with the idea of making White pay for his crimes. Lily was more than happy to help, when really all I needed from her was the password to their common room. I was happy to leave it with scaring the shit out of him while he slept, but Lily had other ideas.

We woke before the sun had risen and I met her in the Gryffindor common room. After only moments of being in there, I felt the red begin to suffocate me, but still I stayed.

Lily dragged me up the stairs to the boys’ dorms and towards the seventh year’s area. I refused to voice the question of how she knew its location. On the other hand, she could ask me the same question if the roles were reversed. We silenced ourselves and walked in to his room. Quietly and carefully we lifted his mattress from his bed and out from his room.

It was surprising when his roommates didn’t wake up; especially when Lily tripped over his trunk and snorted at her own stupidity.

I was sure that I witnessed one eye opening of a roommate, but they didn’t’ move, nor run to his rescue. I wasn’t going to pursue it.

It took us twenty minutes to levitate his mattress – with him on it – from his room to the lower section of the grounds, another forty after that to find the right spot in the forest. I was thankful that Lily was such a freak and spent so much time in there. She walked the muddy paths as if it were her own driveway.

I remember brushing against trees as we past them, my wand still firmly in my hand. The rough bark cut in to my skin on my arms as the squeeze between the trees became tight, we had to hold the mattress above the tall pines and watch it through beady eyes.

Lily brushed her nails over her uniform skirt. “I hope that your lover appreciates this.” She said. “I broke a nail in that wood.”

“She’s not my lover,” I argued. “She’s just a good friend – plus the victim was Adam White, so that made things even more fun.”

“Right, you hate White don’t you?” she reminded, mainly herself. “Still, this was fun; we should do it again sometime.”

“Do you have anyone else in mind?”

“Paul Wood?” She tried. “He told me that I was a ‘punk arse’ yesterday, I mean it’s like he’s been hanging out with Uncle George.”

I suppressed a laugh. “You want me to put him in his place?”

“Uncle George?” she questioned. “No I think he’s fine, thank you.”

“I meant Wood.”

She took my deadpan lightly. “Nope; he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

I wanted to hug her, tell her that I was proud of her. Out of all the sisters in the world, I knew that I was given the best. She could scare boys almost two years older than her simply by glaring. She really was her mothers’ daughter. But I could never tell her this.

I went with something a little more subtle.

“Alright then, but nothing too harsh.” She raised a brow at my advisement. “Scorpius will be mad if you hurt him before he get’s the chance.”

“Well tell Malfoy to hurry up,” she ordered. “I don’t know how much longer I can last with Rosie dating that prick. At least if she was with Malfoy the company would be entertaining.”

“And what makes you think she should get with Scorp?” I asked.

She raised a brow.

That as an answer was sufficient enough.

Letting her arms fall down to her sides, she sighed. “Still, Longbottom told our house that we shouldn’t worry, our housemate will be fine and dandy and joining us for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Shame.”

“Completely.”

My green eyes seemed to darken. “We should have put him in further.”

“He’s already in the Hospital Wing, Al, how much more were you planning on doing?”

I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “It’s only November; we have until July. I have many things that I planning on doing.”

Her smile seemed to grow. “Let me help with a few then, I need some form of entertainment around here.”

I nodded in an agreement and folded my arms over my chest.

“What are you going to do when I am gone?”

She smirked. “Oh many things, Albus, many beautiful things.”

They found White around lunchtime stumbling around the outskirts of the forest wearing button-up pyjamas.

He seemed to have had a run-in with the centaurs.

I felt no remorse.

It was our fifth class of the day when Neville decided to come around personally and tell us, as the Head of Gryffindor House, the horrible, horrible things that Adam suffered getting back to the castle. Aka, kicked around a little and fell in a lake. Bambi turned to my nonchalant body language as his ‘disappearance’ was announced earlier in the day.

I saw a faint smile play on her features.

And that was simply reward enough for the deed – but then I caught a glimpse of White after dinner this evening in the Hospital Wing.

Mad.

He thought that I did it to him.

Of course I was horrified at the accusation.

But contrary to everything, my blonde haired roommate found the entire situation the best laugh that he had, had all year.

I knew that there was a reason he was my best friend.

Lily left with her friend Lysander and they went off to their common room. I stood by the archway alone. Leaning back on the stone, I still had my arms cross, a solemn expression on my face.

“Albus!” Someone called, bring me back to realisation. I looked to the face of Scorpius. “And would you look at that, he looks like he’s been hit by the Night Bus.”

“Thanks,” I sneered.

He shrugged. “It’s not my fault you decided to roll around with Hagrid’s catch of the month,” he added. “How did you get that cut on your face anyway?”

My hand reached to the slice above my eye. I was hit in the face by a tree branch. I simply raised a brow in response.

Scorpius slapped my shoulder. “That’s my boy.”

I didn’t want to know what he was thinking.

It was then that I noticed his company. Bambi.

She stood firmly by his side with a quizzical expression upon her face. Unsurprisingly, her card pack was busy being shuffled in her hands. Her dark curls fell loose and her eyes wide with curiosity. But her expression was nothing compared to the dark blonde stood by her side.

I was guessing this was her friend. Her lips were painted with lipstick, an old coral that would stain any colour without a chance of reviving it. Her eyes were blue and her hair outrageously unkempt. It was a little shocking that I hadn’t noticed her before - with wild hair and soulful eyes, how could you not?

“This is Aria,” Bambi introduced. “She got out of the Hospital Wing this morning.”

I nodded in acknowledgment. “Evening.”

“Ditto,” she replied. “Albus, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” I said with a smirk. “How’s your injuries?”

Her smiled faded a little. “Healed, but Wood’s going to pay.”

“Hang on,” Scorpius interrupted. “Wood put you in the Hospital Wing?”

“By accident,” she defended, her voice was airy – like she was on a constant drug. “He was spying on our practise and he scared the lights out of me, I sorta just fell.” She blew a stray hair from her face. “Creepy bastard, he was peering through the stands.”

“He was stood behind them?” I questioned.

“No, I mean he was actually under them and was peering through the gaps.”

My mouth made a small shape of recognition, but no sound came from it. Bambi gave me a small smile.

Scorpius snorted. “Git. It would have made my day if the stands collapsed.”

“They probably would do if he stood on them.” Aria chided. “His ego is big enough to take up the stadium.”

“And he’s fat.” Scorpius added bluntly.

“No he’s not,” she disagreed. “Just…big boned.”

“Fat.”

“I’m a Hufflepuff; I have to disagree with your mean comments.” She said dryly.

“Mean comments?” he echoed. “What are you, five?”

“You’re the one acting like a toddler,” she rounded and put on a deep, taunting voice. “’He’s fat’.”

“That sounded nothing like me.” Scorpius practically whinnied.

I suppressed a smile and held back from pointing out that it did infact, sound just like him.

“And what of it?” Scorpius questioned. “What if I didn’t like your card tricks?”

“Then you’re a mental case,” I deadpanned.

Scorpius snorted. “Me? I’m not the one peering through Quidditch Stands.”

“He only did it because he was threatened by the Hufflepuff Team!” Aria replied hastily.

The blonde shook his head and looks mildly amused. “He was threatened by a group of Hufflepuffs – well, there are just too many things wrong with that sentence. For starters ‘threatened by’ and ‘Hufflepuffs’ are two terms that should never be used in the same sentence. Unless it’s ‘The Hufflepuffs felt threatened by everything from the Slytherin Quidditch team to a pair of dirty socks’.”

Aria looked irritated enough to slap him.

I looked down to Bambi through dark eyes and gestured towards the staircase with my head subtly. She answered with a nod.

They didn’t notice as we left.

Quidditch was not a subject that I was willing to discuss without the Beaters bat in my own hand to batter the conversation starter with.

We wandered off slowly up the staircase, lessening with pupils by the minute – most headed towards dinner. She brushed against a third year but muttered an apology. That was the first vast difference between the two of us. If that happened to me, I would be receiving the apology, not giving it. But I’m sure that will change with time.

She flattened her skirt against her legs as we reached the top. I watched discreetly as her fingers brushed over the material. She doesn’t wear skits, always trousers or shorts, but she kept the same combat boots that she tends to wear; they’re only a little taller than her ankle, a worn and faded black, the laces, as usual, undone and tucked inside the shoe.

Bambi definitely was a card of her own.

The material of her skirt travelled to a little above her knee, her tights covering her skin. She wrapped her index finger in a loose curl from her hair and sighed as their staircase began to slowly move. She rested on the banister.

“Albus,” she began quietly as two first years passed between us to get to the top. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For the other day,” she practically whispered. “I’m really embarrassed; I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

I tried to hide a smile. “Bambi, everyone cries.”

“Not you,” she said. “When was the last time that you cried like that? And stop smiling, this isn’t funny.”

I bit my lip, another attempt. “I don’t cry Bambi; I sit in silence and sulk. We all have our own ways of dealing with things. But if you must know, I cried last year, my little sister Lily pushed my from the roof of the house, I didn’t have my wand and I had to go to Saint Mungo’s.”

“But you were in pain,” she replied quietly.

“So were you,” I said. “Yours just wasn’t physical.”

“Like Adam White’s?” Bambi questioned. “I know that you did that to him by the way, so don’t try and deny it; you said that you wouldn’t do anything.”

“And I didn’t.” I reassured. “The centaurs did.”

She clicked her tongue and began to ascend the stairs as they clicked in to place. “I don’t know how you did it Al, but I know that you played a hand in that.”

“Are you going to pursue this theory of yours?”

The brunette shook her head, stopping by the large forth floor window. It was tall enough to cover two stories.

“Wait,” she issued. “Would it annoy you if I did?” She took my silence as an answer in itself. “Then I shall ask you everyday.”

I shut my eyes. “Do you have to be so difficult?”

“It wouldn’t be me if I weren’t.”

“You’re right,” I amended. “You’re a difficult person.”

Narrowing her eyes, she spoke. “That’s not a nice thing to say.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite.”

“Don’t be a bully,” she tried, tearing her gaze away from the view of the grounds. “Be nice for a change.”

“I can be whoever you want me to be.” I replied smugly.

She groaned. “You see, it’s practically impossible to have a normal conversation with you, you usually result to sexual comments and it’s not funny.”

“Yes it is.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“Name one reason why!”

I smiled to myself. “Because when I do it you blush, and it’s kinda cute.”

The blush popped out to say hello.

“That’s beside the point.”

“No it’s not,” I pressed. “You asked me to give you one reason, and I did. It’s a valid reason to, not a pansy reason like you would get out of Scorpius or Jack.”

“That’s because I would punch Jack and Scorpius is too nice to comment.”

I snorted. “Too nice? He’s a tosser.”

“He’s your best friend.”

“Aria is yours,” I said stupidly. “But you weren’t sat by her bed in the Hospital Wing every night.”

“Most of them,” she argued. “She wouldn’t expect me to – you would live by Scorpius’s bed if he was hurt, he would do the same for you. Aria and I don’t have that friendship, we know that the other is there in spirit, yours and Scorpius’ is little more literal.”

“He would push me from the bed so he could sleep,” I pointed out. “Or maybe just draw stuff on my face while I was out of it.”

“It’s his way of showing affection.”

She looked back out over the grounds, smiling a little as a bird flew past the window.

“Pretend I’m Jack, then.” I said “If I annoy you that much just pretend I’m Jack.”

Bambi didn’t look away from the glass. “What would you want me to do?”

“You said it yourself, if I were Jack, you would hit me.”

“No, because Jack wouldn’t have said anything if he were in the situation at all” She argued, her large eyes narrowing.

I shrugged and crossed my arms, leaning back on the brick wall. “So hit me.”

“I’m not going to hit you. Hex you maybe.”

“You wouldn’t have the heart.”

I saw her eyes dart towards her wand. But she didn’t reach for it.

Instead her fist clenched and shot towards my shoulder.

In one swift movement I moved my palm up so she hit that instead. She looked initially shocked at her own movement, or maybe startled at mine. I could tell there was no effort in the punch, or force behind it - a force that she would have supplied if I were her 6’ cousin.

I wrapped my fingers around her clenched hand and pulled on it. Her body moved easily with the movement, pulling towards mine. Her breath seemed to hitch.

Her leg brushed against mine as I caught her.

I expects many things at this point, too many to make a decision on which I wanted. Some were reasonable expectations, some were not. What I had not counted on was her other hand clenching and driving in to my stomach with a strength to match Scorpius’.

“Bambi!” I spluttered. “What the-“

“You are so,” she made a screechy noise at the back of her throat. “Unbelievable!”

I coughed and tried to stand up straight, ignoring the throbbing now occurring in my gut. “Unbelievable?” I echoed. “You just hit me!”

“You told me to!”

“I didn’t think that you would, Circe woman!”

She retracted inwardly for a moment before her thin fingers went to her hair. “Don’t you ‘woman’ me. You told me to do it! You’re so full of it, Potter. You do things to people, drive them mad!”

“Oh yes with my charm, wit and broken gut!”

“Grow up,” she spat. “You’re such a wimp! I’m more of a man than you!”

“But you hit me!” I rounded. Again. “Are you sure that you’re a girl; usually people from the female gender aren’t born with that strength. They just kinda pathetically slap. And I am a manly man!”

Her eyebrows knitted together and she rolled her eyes. “I apologise for not being a fake-nailed, fame-searching fan girl. I grew up with Jack, it was ‘learn to hit or be hit’ in that house.”

“And so you decided to take up boxing!”

“Don’t be childish; you’re the one who makes people crazy!” she whined.

I stepped forward and grabbed hold of her shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

“You,” she said through gritted teeth. “You make me so mad all the time. When I’m with you it’s like I want to strangle you but then when I’m not it’s as if I want to be just so I can feel like that again.”

I didn’t speak.

She took a deep breath. “All I know is that since you said my name, I can’t get your voice out of my head. I hear it all the time. And I just want you to say it again.”

Bambi moved a little in my grip, her hands reaching for her head once more. She tore her gaze away from mine. Mine was heavy, penetrating. I wanted her to say more. It would be mean to leave it at simply that.

“Bambi.”

Her hands fell back to her sides and her head looked up, her teeth grazing over her lips. “You’re infuriating, you know that.”

I cocked a brow and smirked.

She shook her head in slight disbelief and clicked her tongue. But she didn’t move from my grip, a grip that didn’t loosen. Quickly, her hands shot to my waist in an almost violent motion as she pressed her lips to mine.

I found myself responding from the first moment.

It wasn’t slow, nor was it careful kiss. It was fast, hard and passionate. It gathered all the annoyance that she could muster. She arched in to me, her arms wrapped firmly around my waist. My hands tangled themselves in to her hair as my thumbs brushed over her temples.

She pulled away, suddenly, her arms pulling away from my waist. She took my hands from her skin and stepped back, breathing heavily.

“Albus, this isn’t right.”

“Did that feel wrong to you?”

She shook her head but still refused to look at me.

I laughed darkly. “Bambi, I don’t know what you got out of that, but I know what I did. I like you, despite what you want to make yourself believe, you like me. Pack up your insecurities and get back here.”

She brushed her brunette hair from her face and looked to where my fingers pointed; the stone floor beneath our feet. It was where she had stood only moments ago.

“I’m not a fan girl,” she said quietly. “I don’t paint my nails and I’m not a size six. You could have any girl that you wanted. Why me?”

“Because you talk to me like I’m your equal, and treat me like shit.” I explained in a low tone. “You make me rethink everything that I’ve ever thought. You’re not like any other girl in this castle; if you were I wouldn’t talk to you. Out of all of the girls in the world, I want you. Is that so hard to accept?”

“It doesn’t appear to be working,” I say and her eyes light up a little. Odd. “The girl he wants isn’t kissing him.”

I was dumbfounded by her trail of thought. It wasn’t rational. She astounded me everyday. She confused me every time that I met her, each time about something different. She stepped forward a little and bit back a grin.

I reached forward, stepping slightly myself and grabbed hold of her hands. I laced her fingers through mine and kissed her lips. She bit down on to my bottom lip lightly before kissing it.

“You still annoy me.” She whispered, her eyes blinking open.

I smirked. “The feelings mutual, Nancy.”

An; Thank you for reading – especially for sticking with me through this story. I realize it’s short, and I’ve never attempted a short one before, so hopefully it’s alright. :)

I adore reviews! So don’t forget to leave one! :D

Hopefully you all liked the ending, I tried not to make it too mushy- mushy is not Albus’ scene. Oh, and Aria, although it was only a brief meeting, how did you like her? But last but not least, Adam White’s fate. Albus never betrays a promise, but he does like to waver on the guidelines a little bit. So he didn’t cause direct hurt to White, but simply put him in harm’s way, like the lovely chap he is. :)

Thank you again for reading. Please check out my MTA page at the forums. And if you have any more spare time, please check out other stories of mine, there’s a few on my page. :)